I am aware that there are some people at work who disagree with my political views and that there are some who may consider me a radical, or even dangerous. That’s fine, I can deal with that. But now it seems that I also have issues. I apparently have these issues because I expect people to do their jobs.

I guess I grew up being spoon fed all these silly sayings, like an honest days pay for an honest days work. Or, if you’re going to take a mans money, make sure you earn it. Then my favorite, if you’re going to do a job, do it right.

So, when I punch in at the time clock, I am prepared to work my ass off, if necessary, to get the job done. It appears that I am among a small minority of people who feel that way. It also appears that those who don’t seem to consider me mean and inconsiderate because I expect them to do the same.
My job is not rocket science. A person does not need a college degree, or even a high school degree to perform it. However, one must be willing to perspire. All I do is maintain a certain level of fruit in a hopper by diverting fruit into baskets, or dumping those baskets back into the hopper. I am also expected to keep the line I am assigned to clean, empty some garbage cans, and sometimes put up cardboard which forms the cases that the finished product is packaged in. Pretty simple stuff, but you have to keep busy to get it done.

Yet I see people on other lines, just standing there at their assigned hopper all day long, fruit all over the floor, garbage cans overflowing onto the floor, and these other people don’t move a muscle to do the job they are paid for.

This bothers me for a few reasons. First is the fact that these people obviously are lazy and don’t take any pride in their work. Second, since we are in a union run plant, these lazy people earn the same pay as I do. If we were given pay raises according to how well we did our jobs, these people would never see a pay increase. But what really bothers me is that the leads know who are the good workers, and they will tell them to go help someone else on their line instead of making the person assigned their do their job.

I have also been told that I fill my baskets too heavy for people to pick up. I’m sorry, I don’t buy that. First of all people, before they are hired, take a strength test. To pass that strength test they are expected to be able to lift 50 pounds…continuously. It even says that on the job description, must be able to lift 50 pounds repeatedly.

None of my baskets weigh more than that, yet people always say that they are too heavy. If they are too heavy, then either you are incapable of doing what is expected of you, or you are just plain lazy. My wife weighs a whopping 103 pounds, and a 50 pound basket is half her body weight. Yet she has no problem with the baskets I fill. In fact she fills hers heavier than I do. So what excuse do these other people have?

You wanna know what I think? I think people just want something for nothing. They want a paycheck, without having to earn it. I think that is something that society in general has come to believe, that they are entitled to something for nothing.

Just yesterday I went in to get an estimate on my taxes. The tax preparer was telling me that if you don’t make more than a certain amount, somewhere around $3500, you don’t even have to file a 1040. Yet there are people who come in, having earned only $1200, because they know that they can get an earned income credit refund of $600. These people probably didn’t pay $100 in taxes, yet they are gonna get $600 back. It is fraud, plain and simple, but they feel that they are entitled to that money.
That sense of entitlement is why our country will never change. People expect these entitlements, like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. All these things are programs which have been enacted by our government to produce a dependency upon them. People are no longer capable of providing for themselves, or saving for their future. They expect to be provided for once they retire.

I admit, that I was victim to that way of thinking, at least up until around 10 years ago. I bought into the belief that Social Security was my safety net for retirement, that I did not need to save anything on my own. How I wish I could go back to my first of work knowing what I know now!

But like I said, that is why we will never change in this country. Even if we were able to throw out every rotten apple in D.C., which probably means the whole batch of them, things would quickly revert back to business as usual. That is because people no longer know how to fend for themselves. At the first sign of hardship they go running off for some government assistance.

If we were able to replace the entire Congress with people who vowed to uphold the Constitution, as written, then there would be riots in the streets as millions of people addicted to government subsidies suddenly found themselves having to rely upon themselves for their sustenance. Our government knows this and they intend to keep us dependent upon them by providing more and more programs to take care of our every needs.

Let me tell you something. True freedom means being able to take care of yourself and not rely upon anyone else for ANYTHING. So, with each government program instituted to do something for you, you lose a bit of that freedom. Freedom is proportionately lost by the growth of government. The less government interferes in your life, the more freedom you have, and vice versa.

If there were a way to opt out of every government program, I would do it. If there were a way that I did not have to pay a penny of my earnings to fund any of them, I would do it. But there isn’t unless I go completely off the grid. As long as I work I will pay taxes. As long as I own a home I will pay taxes and be bound by their rules and regulations.

And you know that when you are bound, by law, to obey things that you disagree with, you are not free. And the antonym of free is slave. So if you are bound to obey these laws, pay these taxes, subscribe to these programs, then you are a slave to them. And that is not what our founders intended when they created this land of the free and home of the brave. Think about that, would you.

~ The Author ~
Neal Ross can be reached for comments at bonsai@syix.com. Visit Neal’s Blog at http://www.zombie-slayer.com/neal